3 Ways To Set & Stick To Your Business Goals + One Bonus Tip
How To Stick To Your Blogging Goals
It’s January 17. More than half of January is already gone. There’s every indication that every other month will fly by just as fast.
And if you’re anything like me you’ve set New Year’s resolutions (although I tend to start working on them before New Years).
My question is what tangible steps have you taken so far to really make those resolutions a reality?
Will you be looking back a year from now saying “Man I wish I had done xyz like I promised myself I would”?
Or
Will you be looking back saying “wow, I was determined and focused and I actually accomplished my goals like I said I would”?
I’m asking myself these questions just as much as you are. I’ve set countless New Year’s resolutions and broken more of them than I care to admit.
I’m pretty sure I have undiagnosed ADHD. And even if I don’t officially have it, I have so many symptoms of ADHD that I approach my life as if I did.
So trust me when I say that I truly get how hard it is to try and focus and not have squirrel brain.
So what can we do differently this year to actually make our resolutions stick?
This is what I’m planning on doing:
How To Make & Stick To Your Blogging Goals For Real This Time
1. Reflect back on the last year with brutal honesty:
One way to be successful with your plans for the next year is to reflect back on the last year and see where improvements can be made.
And when I say reflect back I don’t simply mean to ponder.
I mean to go through the past year with a magnifying glass and truly examine, with brutal honesty, just what got in the way of you accomplishing your dream.
It’s not fun. It’s the opposite of fun. It’s painful. It may make you feel like a failure. But that’s not the point of the exercise.
The point is to truly examine what went wrong so that we can make the proper changes necessary so that this year will not be more of the same.
So ask yourself:
When did you give up trying to fulfill your resolutions? Was it January, February, or maybe you quit in April?
Why did you quit? Was the goal too overwhelming? We’re they too unrealistic? Was there not enough motivation?
Did life get busy and got out on the back burner to the point where you completely forgot about them?
Think about what the turning point was?
Write down what happened in the past that caused you to.
2. Be Specific & SMART:
This year make your goals more specific.
One of the best ways to set a goal is to use the SMART method. This means you are setting goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely… I talk more about them in my post here on procrastination.
It’s quite possible that you’ve set goals but they were so murky that you may not have known whether or not you accomplished them.
With smart goals you know exactly when you’ve achieved them because they are so darn specific there’s no way not to know.
I go over goal setting and how to accomplish your dreams in my book.
3. Get some accountability
Knowing that someone is going to ask you what you’ve done this week to make your dreams a reality is one of the biggest motivations you can have.
I know for sure that I suddenly stop daydreaming and looking at random videos on YouTube when I know someone is going to be saying to me, “How are you coming along on fill in the blank?”.
There’s something about someone shining that right spotlight on your goal that really helps you see it in a more urgent light.
So find someone who will hold you accountable and consistently ask you about your progress. It can be a friend, family member, life coach, therapist,… whoever you think will actually hold you accountable.
4. Do something differently (Bonus)
I know I know, this is groundbreaking but let’s be real.
How many times have we expected different results but done the exact same thing that we did last year when we epically failed to accomplish our goal?
Like all the time.
I know that I’ve done it time and time again and been perpetually surprised that it happened. Umm yeah girl what did I expect?
So if you want different results you have to do something differently.
For instance, if your goal was to get in shape last year but you didn’t because you didn’t set any concrete goals then this year make your goal SMART.
Instead of saying I’m going to do more with my blog this year say “This is year, I’m going to write 2 posts a week, write 3 ebooks, and launch a course on how to write a devotional”.
Or if you did set concrete goals last year but you still didn’t achieve what you wanted to achieve then take it a step further and say I’m going to get a life coach to help me narrow my vision (keep in mind that these are not necessarily SMART goals but the strictest definition of the word but they are specific).
Whatever you do, do use the same exact approach that you used last year. We already know this doesn’t work.
Sorry to be harsh but we already know this doesn’t work 🙂
Struggling with procrastination?
This post on procrastionation can help (please don’t click on it later lol)!
Where will your blogging business be by this time next year?
I keep asking myself this question over and over. Where will my business be by this time next year if I don’t take more risks, put myself out there more and work harder?
If you’re feeling like you are spinning your wheels with your blogging business then I hope following these 4 tips on how to set goals that you will actually stick to, will motivate you to do something different this year.
If we want to see a change in our business then we have to be willing to do some self-evaluation and engage in a lot of prayer to see which direction the Lord is taking us.
I would love to hear your New Year’s resolutions in the comments below and to see how you will change your business strategies up this year.
It could help me and all of the readers here see things in a different way.
